Starburst Slots Celebrates 10th Birthday

Starburst Slot’s Birthday Party

Ten years after the original release of Starburst, NetEnt hosted a party for game creators and operators to gather together, party, and toast the next ten years of Starburst. The birthday event celebrated the excitement that has always surrounded Starburst, with an incredible 18 billion spins on the video slot played in the last two and a half years alone. Starburst is indisputably a timeless video slot that still pays out astronomical amounts and has electrifying graphics and animations. The party was complete with live music, photo booths with a Starburst theme, a 3D mapped birthday cake shooting fireworks, and an astronaut performance show.

Starburst is known for its thrilling sound effects, glistening gem symbols and incredible animations and presentation. The slot is easy to learn how to play with only one exciting bonus feature. Starburst has been remastered and updated several times, with many spin-off versions created including Starburst XXXtreme.

The Remastered Starburst Slot

In 2012, the original Starburst slot was released from NetEnt. The slot instantly became a popular pick among players. Starburst is played on a 5x3 grid that offers 10 fixed paylines. The cosmic theme to the slot makes it stand out with rich colours and shiny gemstone symbols across a dark background.

On the reels, players can expect to find purple, blue, orange, green and yellow gemstones. In addition, there is also a 7 symbol and BAR symbol. The most rewarding symbol in the slot is the BAR symbol, which pays up to 250x your stake. To make matters even better, Starburst is a Both Ways Win slot, meaning winning combinations can form from left to right and from right to left. That means that a five of a kind combination involving the BAR symbol will pay 500x your stake, rather than 250x, given that you will win from both left to right and right to left. The only requirement is that all winning combinations start from either the first or the fifth reel.

The space themed slot is complete with one bonus feature, the Starburst Wilds. Starburst wilds can land on any of the three inner reels, that is to say, reels 2, 3 and 4. Whenever the Starburst wilds drop, they will substitute for all standard symbols to help and form winning combinations. In addition, they will instantly trigger the Starburst Wilds feature.

The Starburst Wilds expand to fill up an entire reel. This makes the reel wild and it remains wild for an additional free re-spin. On the re-spin, if another wild lands, you will be rewarded with another re-spin, whilst both the first and second reels remain wild.

This means you could potentially fill up all 3 middle reels with Starburst Wilds, ensuring the three inner reels are wild and three re-spins in total. When all three inner reels are wild, this gives you a far better chance landing five of a kind combinations.

In 2021, the Starburst slot was remastered by NetEnt. Whilst the gameplay remains the same as the original release, the animations and visuals are polished up to suit today’s technology and standards. Starburst is available on all devices including smartphones and has a standard RTP of 96.06%, which is slightly above the average. The hit frequency is 22.65%, which means that almost 1 in 4 spins will result in a payout, and the top payout is 500 times your stake.

What Comes After Starburst Slot?

Starburst is such an iconic slot that the creators at NetEnt decided to release a sequel in 2021, Starburst XXXtreme. The sequel slot is played on a 5-reel, 3-row slot machine that offers 9 fixed paylines. Much like the original, wild symbols expand to cover the inner three reels. However, as this is the extreme version, the wilds can have multipliers attached to them, with up to x450 available. In addition, Starburst XXXtreme has other bonuses in it that are not included in the original slot.

Starburst XXXtreme uses the same purple, blue, orange, green and yellow gemstones on the reels. In addition, the 7 and BAR symbol also have a place in the sequel slot. The symbols look exactly the same, as does the background and space theme. The audio track and sound effects are also the same as the original slot.

In Starburst XXXtreme, there are three bonus features, not only one. The first is the Starburst Wilds, which is triggered whenever a wild symbol lands on any of the inner reels. Just like in the original slot, the starburst wild expands to cover the entire reel, making it wild. When this happens, the player is awarded with a free re-spin. On the re-spin, the player can trigger another re-spin by landing another wild. This means that potentially all three inner reels can be complete wild, and the player will have won a total of 3 re-spins.

However, to make matters more interesting, the wilds in Starburst XXXtreme have multipliers attached to them that can be valued at x2, x3, x5, x10, x25, x50, x100 or x150. Moreover, if the player lands more than one multiplier wild, they combine to give an overall multiplier boost. That means that the player could potentially benefit from a x450 multiplier enhancer if all three starburst wilds have the top x150 multiplier attached.

In Starburst XXXtreme, you have an even better chance of winning due to the Random Wilds feature. At any given time, after either a spin or a re-spin, the bonus feature may trigger, rewarding you with between 1 and 3 Starburst Wilds. The Starburst Wilds will have a multiplier attached to them that can range from x2 to x150. There is no way to trigger this bonus feature as it activates completely at random.

The third and final bonus feature in Starburst XXXtreme is the Spins mode. In this bonus feature, players can pay an extra fee to guarantee that Starburst Wild symbols land. The options include:

• The player pays 10 times their stake to guarantee 1 Starburst Wild to land
• The player pays 95 times their stake to guarantee that 2 Starburst Wilds land

Once activated, the Starburst XXXtreme Spins feature will remain in play until the mode is deactivated. In this game mode, the RTP increases from 96.26% to 96.45%. However, due to United Kingdom Gambling Commission regulations, this bonus feature is not available in the UK.

What Slot Can I Play That Are Similar to Starburst?

Starburst is one of the most popular slots in the iGaming industry. Due to its popularity, many other online software providers have tried to copy the popular theme and gameplay of the slot. This means that you will find several slots that are remarkably similar to Starburst, even if they haven’t quite achieved its fame.

Inferno Star

Play’n GO tried to replicate Starburst with a similar slot called Inferno Star. The Play’n GO slot is played on a 5-reel slot machine that offers 5 paylines. Behind the reels, the background is an Inferno Star, that is to say, the sun. Just like Starburst, the slot has brightly coloured symbols including grapes, lemons, plums, apples, cherries, watermelons and a burning sun. There is also a Raging Sun symbol on the reels that can only land on the third reel. When this happens, it will trigger the Raging Sun Re-Spins feature.

The Re-Spins feature is triggered by landing 1 Raging Sun scatter on reel 3. All of the other reels respin while the middle reel remains locked. During the bonus spin, all sun symbols transform into Raging Sun scatters.

If one sun symbol lands during a re-spin, you will receive another re-spin. This keeps on happening until you do not land any additional sun symbols or until you have landed a sun symbol on all 5 reels. If you manage to land a total of 5 sun symbols, you will win 2,500x your stake.

Inferno Star is similar to Starburst as it is incredibly easy to learn and only has one bonus feature. In addition, the slot uses a similar theme with glistening symbols on a backdrop with the sun.

Crystal Sun

Crystal Sun from Play’n GO is a 5-reel, 3-row video slot that offers 10 paylines. Similar to Starburst, Crystal Sun wilds can only land on reels 2, 3 and 4. Once they land, they expand to fill up the entire reel and award the player with a free re-spin. If another wild drops, it expands to award another re-spin. Thus, a total of 3 re-spins can be claimed and the middle reels can become completely wild for the last re-spin.

The wilds that drop have multipliers attached. It is possible for these multipliers to combine to a maximum of 9x. This gives players the chance of winning up to 4,000 times their stake.

In Crystal Sun, the game is played against a dark background where stars and a planet are seen in the backdrop. On the reels, the symbols include 5 lower valued planet symbols. The higher-ranking symbols include three 7s and three diamonds. The latter is the most rewarding symbol in the slot, paying up to 24x your stake for landing 5 across a payline. As for the wild, it substitutes all standard symbols to help form winning combinations.

The Developers at NetEnt

It is widely accepted that Starburst is one of the most popular online slots of all time and certainly NetEnt’s biggest hit. The software developer was founded in Stockholm in 1996. However, in December 2020, Evolution acquired NetEnt in a €1.8 billion deal, taking ownership of 96.8% of the outstanding shares.

The merger was certainly a success for Evolution, given the reputation of NetEnt. The software provider is widely considered to be regarded as one of the giants of the industry, alongside Microgaming and Playtech, especially in the sphere of online slots.